Where Water Gathers

In 2026, Sonic Territories works with water as a guiding image of change. Its movements, pauses, pressures, erosion and returns shape the rhythm of the edition, connecting a sequence of projects across Vienna and its surroundings with the main festival programme from 19–25 October 2026.

Taking water as both material condition and connective force, this year’s edition traces the ways in which Vienna has been shaped by systems of circulation, storage and transformation: from rivers and engineered urban landscapes to industrial architecture, collective infrastructures and spaces of concentrated resonance. Sound becomes a way of tracing these shifts.

The 2026 edition develops the festival’s ongoing interest in sound, space and listening through a local and site-specific approach. The programme moves between places with distinct spatial and acoustic conditions: outdoor environments in Kritzendorf and an undisclosed forest location by the water; historical and infrastructural sites including the Otto Wagner Areal and the Wasserturm; experimental laboratory settings in Seestadt; and sacred interiors. Each site transforms the way sound is experienced — through openness, enclosure, distance, echo, exposure or intimacy.

From listening sessions and site-specific works to research laboratories, concerts and experimental collaborative formats, the programme invites audiences to notice what is usually passed through, overlooked or unheard.

From 19–25 October 2026, these different strands come together in a concentrated festival week across Vienna.